


Beneath the Heat of His Skin

by Resamille



Series: That Which Is Left Behind [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bottom Lance (Voltron), Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon, Post-War, Though probably mostly hurt, elemental powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 11:26:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12364740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resamille/pseuds/Resamille
Summary: It wasn't exactly an argument, per se, that got them here, but that's what Keith always says whenever he's biting marks into Lance's skin for the single reason that it grounds him. Because right now, even in Lance's home filled with soft moonlight, they're drifting.The war is over.Earth is safe.And yet, each new day is a new challenge to conquer.They can't keep going like this.





	Beneath the Heat of His Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel to Warmth of the Air We Breathe.
> 
> It can be read as standalone, but it probably helps to have read that one first, because that explains a lot more naturally about the elemental powers and Pidge and why Keith and Lance are so broken.  
> The most important detail to note if you haven't read the first part is that Keith and Lance have powers related to their lions' respective elements.

The ghost of breath, the gasp against Keith's lips, the brush of fingers, reaching, hoping.

There's a chill under the surface of Lance's skin, and maybe at one point, this fact might have concerned Keith. It marks Lance as more—or perhaps, less—than human, and that terrifies Keith. But there is also a point at which he must accept this, that they have changed, that they have lost and gained something in the end of the war. Now, that same chill, an icy touch to Lance's fingers as they ghost across Keith's nape, edge him on.

Because Keith, too, is now less than human, though maybe he never truly was in the first place. Underneath him, Lance lets out a soft gasp as Keith's teeth leave marks against Lance's collarbone, staining adoration and desperation against his body.

The moonlight shines down in soft drapes of silver, turning Lance's skin from warm darkness to a muted grey marble, a fitting hue to match the frost running through his veins and intertwining with his soul.

The room is quiet aside from the soft shuffling of bedding and limbs, and the house: quiet, too. All of Lance's siblings still young enough to stay home are asleep—or at least should be—and either way, Lance and Keith have had enough experience by now to know how to keep each other quiet.

The press of Keith's lips seal a moan into Lance's throat, trapping it between their tongues, as Keith skims his fingers down Lance's side and ghosts a thumb over Lance's nipple. Keith still marvels at how something so simple—this soft, human contact—is enough to make them forget everything else, at least for a moment. There's too much to really leave all of their baggage behind. The weight of too many lives still drag their shoulders down.

Keith's not sure who started it this time, or what was the trigger for them falling into bed together, trying to chase away each other's lingering pain. Maybe it was a moment of happiness, where they forget that some part of Katie is lost to stardust, and then the crashing reality hits them, and longing and pain and desperation drives them together. Or maybe it was the shake in Lance's fingers, enough that he drops the glass he's washing into the sink, falling with a resolute clatter, and the inevitable attempt to brush off his family's comforts. Maybe, maybe, it was the heat in Keith's fingertips, the flame itching to escape, wanting to burn and burn and burn, and when Keith doesn't let it, the knowing look from Lance, the sympathy of the lion's gift and trying to contain it.

But together, they balance each other, so right here, right now, they're _okay_.

At least, they can pretend to be, for as long as they can make it last.

Lance's tongue licks greedily into Keith's mouth, and he loops a leg over Keith's hip, trying to urge him on. Keith strokes his tongue along Lance's, practice making his movements fluid as he shifts his weight and uses his free hand to grab onto Lance's leg, hiking it higher against his bare waist.

Lance's touch is gentle against Keith's cheek, a cooling caress, before he slides his hands over Keith's shoulders, drawing him in, closer, closer, and Keith relishes the feeling of being wanted. He never would have expected to be the patient one of them when it comes to sex—after all, he's impulsive and rash and selfish in all else that he does. And yet, it's Lance who's rolling his hips up to grind against Keith as best as he can and letting needy little noises slip from his throat for Keith to swallow with his kiss.

Keith pulls away, pressing a kiss to Lance's jaw, a promise and a tease both. “I've got you,” he murmurs against Lance's neck, words followed by a slow lick over the skin there, tasting salt and ice. “You know I've got you.”

Lance lets out a soft whimper, quiet enough to be meant only for Keith to hear, only for Keith to revel in. In reward, Keith kisses Lance's neck, right at the junction of his shoulder, before sucking until he's sure he'll leave a mark, satisfaction settling in his gut at the thought.

The marks—the bruises, the bites, the flush of kiss-swollen lips—they remind them both that they're still human. That sometimes memory can be good, and that sometimes pain is pleasure. Because so, so often, they forget what any of those things mean.

Lance nips at Keith's ear, suggestive and wanting, and heat simmers in Keith's body. It's a reminder that not all heat is destructive.

And yet, there's always bruises the next day.

They just can't leave this shit behind them, can they? Voltron, the lions, even fucking Pidge, and Pidge is _gone, gone for good_ , so _why_? Why can't they let it go?

“Keith,” Lance says, soft, and Keith takes in a shuddering breath.

“I'm good,” he whispers out, though even he isn't sure how strong his voice comes out, if it's even audible at all.

But Lance kisses his cheek, and slides his palm from Keith's shoulder, down his back and to his hip, soothing all the way down. “Okay,” Lance tells him, still quiet.

“I'm good,” Keith says again, breathing in, then out. The air smells like Lance—seafoam and oranges, sweat and arousal.

“Okay,” Lance repeats, and grinds his hips up just enough to rub his dick along Keith's hip.

Keith lets out a soft growl, a Galran noise that he pulls from somewhere deep in his being, and then he bites down on Lance's neck where he'd just been working over.

Lance lets out a breathy noise of surprised pleasure, reveling in sensation, regardless of the slight pain.

Keith allows more of his weight to cover Lance, slipping a leg between Lance's and giving Lance a position to rut against Keith's thigh.

But Lance pushes at his shoulder. “No,” he says. “I want you to fuck me.”

His voice pulls with need—not lust, not exactly desire, though it's present. No, the need is the longing to be able to forget, or to go back in time and fix every time they fucked up.

One hundred and eighty-two.

But that's not counting all the Galra they killed.

Lance holds the weight of too many lives on his shoulders. Sometimes Keith tries to bear that weight for him, as well as his own.

So Keith runs his nose in a soft nuzzle against Lance's neck, and then nibbles at his ear. “Turn over,” he says, while he's there, and Lance shifts underneath him.

He doesn't get all the way over until Keith pulls away, giving Lance more room, but by then, Keith is pressing kisses down Lance's spine, sucking marks into his skin at random, wishing he could remember some of the foreign constellations, if for no other reason than to map them in bruises on Lance's skin. He reaches Lance's ass, and leans back a moment to admire the planes of Lance's body in the moonlight. The dust of cold color turns Lance ghostly—alluring and gorgeous and tempting.

Keith spreads Lance's cheeks apart with his hands, kneading the flesh absently. Lance's breath hitches in anticipation, and Keith presses his tongue over the flat of Lance's hole. There's a muffled noise in response, and Keith pauses, glancing up, to find Lance biting his arm to muffle his moans. It draws a smirk from Keith, tugging his lips upward into something more devious. It makes the fire burn brighter in him, wanting to consume, and he tempers it back down, dipping his head to graze his teeth over Lance's hole.

Lance's body shudders, and Keith takes a heartbeat to appreciate his lover in the beauty of carnality: the glow of moonlight on his skin, heated with sex and summer night, the tension in the curve of his spine, arching for Keith, wanting, begging. And Keith—ever since the end of the war, and perhaps even before then, would never be able to say no to Lance, even in answer to the questions posed by his body alone. So he laps teasingly at Lance's hole, once, before slipping his tongue in, a slow press.

The moan Lance lets out—more of a _finally_ than any real reaction, Keith can tell—is loud, and Lance's skin alights with a chill, shivering across his body in a wave. It's a lapse of control, a moment where he truly forgets, and in response, Keith let's his hands heat with a promise of flame, runs them carefully up from Lance's ass to his shoulder blades. It's not a countermeasure so much as it is a reminder.

Keith hates it, that he has to remind Lance what's real, the pain they've been through. But they can't afford to lose the rickety control they have over these wild gifts. Keith really doesn't want to have to thaw Lance out tonight. They're collectively in a bad enough headspace already.

They don't belong here.

But if not here, where?

Keith feels tears burn against the corners of his eyes, but instead of letting them fall, he squeezes his eyes shut and licks more firmly into Lance, pressing and stretching with his tongue. It doesn't take long before Lance arching his body, pushing back against Keith's face, in needy rolls of his hips. Keith lets out a growl, lets it vibrate through him and hum against Lance's skin. His hand trails from Lance's back, a threat of pleasure, and he grips Lance's hip, firm.

Lance wriggles against his hold, and Keith holds tighter.

It's what they need—to be grounded in the pain of pleasure.

“Dammit, Keith,” Lance pants out, “I said... I wanted y—ah, _shit—_ to fuck me.”

Keith hums against Lance's rim, letting the vibrations turn Lance's words into choked wheezes. When he pulls back, he uses his grip on Lance's hip to draw Lance just a bit closer, and Keith leaves a trail of kisses across the curve of Lance's tailbone, biting new claims onto the landscape of Lance's back.

“Did you now?” Keith says, voice velvet. “Maybe I'd hear you better if you asked nicer.”

Lance struggles to shift his weight onto his elbows, presumably so he can lift his head up and glare over his shoulder at Keith, but the way Keith is holding Lance's center of mass over his head keeps him trapped against the bed. Eventually, Lance caves, body heaving with effort, and he lets out a low whine, just a second before the air chills with frost.

Startled, Keith releases his grip on Lance, and then—“No, Lance, _no_.”

“ _Fuck me_ ,” Lance hisses, almost vehement.

Keith growls, and rises up to press himself over Lance, chest to back, and wills upon his lingering connection to lion. He counts his heartbeats, one measure after another, lets the flame lick from his being. The fire fights against him—wants to leap and consume—but Keith keeps it close to him, allows a single moment of lapse in the lockdown he keeps on Red's gift.

Steam seeps from between the seam of Keith and Lance's bodies, where Keith's heat counteracts the chill emanating from Lance's bones. Keith's fingers run along Lance's arms, producing water where they touch, until he reaches Lance's hands and threads their fingers together, cutting off the ice at the source, warming Lance's palms back from the threat of frostbite.

Slowly, Keith presses a kiss to Lance's neck. “I won't let you do this to yourself,” Keith tells him quietly. “We've fought enough tonight. I don't want to have to thaw you out, too.”

Lance, underneath him, sighs, something nostalgic and pained and weary all at once. “I know,” he breathes, and tilts his head to meet Keith's lips. “I know. I'm sorry. But please— _Keith_. I want to feel you.”

“Okay,” Keith relents, kissing Lance's cheek. “No more teasing.”

True to his word, Keith reaches over to the beside drawer, narrowly avoiding knocking Lance's phone onto the floor as he struggles to open the top drawer. It sticks, sometimes, age and memory etched into the wood. It's older than Lance. The stories it might tell, it if were human. But then again, there's very little dependent on age. Keith would know. He's lived a lifetime of horror in the span of five years.

Fighting off the looming spiral down, Keith yanks the drawer open with far more force than necessary. The result is loud, harsh against the silence of the room, as the contents clatter against each other.

“Hey,” Lance whispers, shifting underneath Keith to face him better. “Hey, it's okay, Keith.”

Keith feels through the drawer until the finds the lube, and then shuts it with more care. He leans back, and Lance moves with him, continuing to face Keith. Lance's hand slide up from his arms and settle on his cheeks, holding Keith's face between his hands and guiding his gaze towards Lance's face.

“Hey,” he says again, eyes flicking between Keith's. “We're okay. I promise.”

Keith stares back. He's braced over Lance, one hand enclosed around the bottle of lube, and the other tangling in the sheets near Lance's shoulder. Here, it feels like he holds the weight of not only his actions, but Lance's too. Here, he's a protector, a caretaker, a lover.

But Voltron made him a soldier.

“I can't—” Keith chokes out suddenly, and the tears held back from earlier finally fall. Lance doesn't react when they hit against his cheeks or run along his fingertips. Keith drags in a breath. “I can't, Lance—I-I— _can't_.”

Lance's thumbs brush over Keith's cheekbones, futilely wiping away tears that keep coming. “You're alright,” he says softly, voice soothing. “I'm alright. We're here. We're home. God, Keith—we're so fucked, but we're home. We made it.”

“Did we?” Keith gasps out. “Did we really? Or is the war still following us?”

“It's _over_ ,” Lance says firmly, strong enough that Keith feels the air temperature shift, feels the words tug on his own heart.

Keith draws in a shuddering breath and meets Lance's eyes in the dim. In the moonlit darkness, Keith can't make out the color—not that he needs to, because he's memorized everything about Lance—but he reads the meaning behind them. There's intent in Lance's gaze, something passionate and kind and unrelentingly determined, and Keith draws what strength he can from that knowledge, that surety.

A single movement: Keith nods.

“Do you want to...?” Lance starts, and Keith answers by sealing a kiss over Lance's lips, cutting off the sound of his voice and melting it into a softer noise with the press of his tongue.

“Please,” Keith says when they break apart. He takes in a shuddering breath, steadying himself. Lance wipes the remains of his tears from his skin, rubbing away the ghost tracks of wetness with gentleness. “You said you wanted to get fucked.”

“Oh, now you listen,” Lance says, though there's no bite to his tone.

Keith makes a huffing noise at him, and leans down to bite at Lance's shoulder in retaliation.

Lance draws him back up to his face, and kisses him, running his tongue over Keith's lips. “Come on. Get on with it then.”

Lance's grin is knowing as he watches Keith slick one finger with lube. There's the same anticipatory hitch of breath as Keith circles Lance's hole before pushing his finger in, slowly working Lance open.

“Keith,” Lance sighs out, and the bites his lip to keep in a moan as Keith brushes over his prostate. “K-Keith, Babe. Talk to me.”

“I'm terrified,” Keith admits quietly, and then works in a second finger. Lance arches against the bed, splaying his limbs out in an attractive curve that draws Keith's eyes and makes his throat go dry. “Christ,” he chokes out, thoughts interrupted by Lance's body, covered in snowy moonlight, all laid out just for Keith. “You're beautiful.”

“And you're—God, _there—_ impatient tonight?”

“You asked for it,” Keith points out.

“Little warn— _shit, shit, Keith_.”

Keith feels a smile tug his spirits higher as Lance twists his hands in the sheets, trying to grind down into Keith's fingers as Keith, unrelenting, massages over Lance's prostate. Lance's head is tipped back, displaying his neck, enticing, and Keith allows himself to taste, leaning over Lance and continuing to work his fingers inside him as Keith sucks on a new spot on Lance's collarbone.

“Gorgeous,” Keith tells Lance's skin. “I'm going to ruin you.”

Lance lets out a whimper. One hand comes up from the bed to tangle in Keith's hair, fingers tugging and scratching sensation onto Keith's scalp. Keith lets out a pleased noise and nuzzles against Lance's shoulder, wishing the world could stay in this moment forever.

Because, right now, Keith can pretend they're okay. He can pretend tomorrow doesn't exist. He can pretend they won't have to face another day with their past haunting them.

Except that Lance wants to confront those ghosts, and Keith would rather run.

But he's not running now, as he pulls back to drizzle lube on his fingers and push three into Lance, who keens under the stretch. Keith watches Lance, stares blatantly at the way Lance's lips part to gasp for air and his eyes flutter shut and his back arches off the sheets. Suddenly, Lance is pulling Keith down into a messy kiss, technique lost to the pants of their breaths and desperate licks into each others' mouths.

And Keith thinks that he could never run from this. Not from Lance.

Lance lets frost breathe from his lips, and Keith swallows it down, letting the touch of ice chase down his throat, only to be simmered into nothingness by the fire in his chest. In turn, Keith lets his own control slip—lets fire curl in his belly—and huffs smoke at Lance, heat stirring between them where Keith's skin goes warm to the touch.

Lance pats at Keith's shoulder, trying to get his attention, and Keith stills in his movements to let Lance catch his breath.

“Christ,” Lance huffs out, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the corner of Keith's mouth. “Put your dick in me before you burn us up.”

Keith blinks at him, conflicted between laughing and contemplating that being a legitimate concern. He eventually settles on the former, letting quiet chuckles shake his form as he rests his head on Lance's shoulder.

“You're ridiculous,” he tells Lance.

“I try,” Lance quips back. He swats at Keith's side. “Move.”

Keith draws back, and Lance turns underneath him, laying on his stomach. He gathers a pillow underneath his head with careful movements, and then folds his arms neatly to held support himself. When Keith only watches him instead of doing anything, Lance makes an annoyed noise at Keith and gathers his knees underneath him to lift his ass up in the air and push back into Keith's lap.

Keith dick slides between Lance's cheeks, catching briefly on Lance's hole, and Keith's breath hitches, caught in lungs. He has to grip Lance's hip with one hand so he can keep Lance still while he reaches for the lube again.

Moments later, Keith is rising up on his knees, fingers digging into Lance's hipbones and tugging him up with him. Lance stays laying against the bed, arching his back into Keith's hold, letting out a needy moan when Keith presses his cock against the swell of Lance's ass as a tease before lining himself up and slowly pressing in.

Lance's moan turns real, loud and inhibited until he buries his face in the pillow, turning the sound muffled. Keith groans, hips hitting flush against Lance's ass, and he leans over Lance, pressing his chest to Lance's back for a moment, just to _feel_.

Lance shifts in Keith's hold, trying to urge him on, and Keith feels Lance's hole clench around his dick, drawing a low moan from Keith.

“Okay,” he breathes against Lance's skin, scraping his teeth over his shoulder blade. “I get it.”

Pushing himself back up, Keith tightens his grip on Lance's hips as he pulls out, almost completely, before slamming back in.

Lance jolts, breath caught in his throat as he holds back noise, and Keith has to bite his lip to keep from moaning as he starts fucking into Lance with fervor.

Lance keeps trying to grind his hips back on Keith's dick, and Keith growls at him, because if Lance wanted to get fucked, then he's going to get it.

Keith's pace stutters as he releases one hand's grip on Lance to loop his arm under Lance's leg, forcing him to shift his balance as Keith holds one leg up in the crook of his elbow. The change in position stretches Lance open, leg tucked closer to his side, and Lance lets out a noise that's somewhere between a moan and a cry.

Keith pace turns to quicker, shorter thrusts as he gets closer to orgasm, feeling arousal coil tightly in his stomach, and then suddenly Lance goes chilled under his fingertips, body taut and tensed. In takes Keith a heartbeat to realize, and then a few more thrusts into Lance as his body clenches around Keith to tip him over the edge, too.

For a moment, they forget it all. For a moment, it's just them, in love and carefree and _found_.

And then, as Keith comes back to himself, he's lost again.

“God,” Lance wheezes as Keith slumps over him, letting Lance's leg fall so he can take the weight. Lance turns to suck in air instead of pressing his face into the pillow. “Good,” he announces. “So good, Keith. I love you.”

“Love you too,” Keith murmurs to Lance's back. He slowly starts to pull out of Lance.

“Never mind,” Lance says, sounding annoyed. “Don't love you. Pulling out sucks.”

“Sorry,” Keith says, and flops on the bed next to Lance. “Do you want me to clean you up?”

Lance sits up and stretches, pulling his arms over his head to work out the kinks in his shoulders. “No,” he says. “I'll do it. Get the sheets?”

“Sure,” Keith answers, and Lance stumbles off the bed, landing on shaky legs and makes his way towards the bathroom.

Keith sets about pulling off the sheets that now have Lance's cum splattered on them, and probably lube, if Keith had to bet, because when is sex ever clean. He leaves the dirty bedding in the hamper, to be dealt with... eventually.

By the time Lance returns, Keith is laying on the bed, now fitted with clean sheets, and staring solemnly at the ceiling.

“Hey,” Lance whispers as he settles in next to Keith, curling himself into the circle of one of Keith's arms and slotting his body into Keith's side. His hair tickles Keith's shoulder, brushes Keith's cheek when he turns to face Lance.

“Hey,” Keith replies, pressing a kiss to Lance's forehead. He reaches down for the blanket, pulling it over both of them.

“Do you think the Garrison remembers us?” Lance asks, voice soft against Keith's shoulder.

Ah, right—that was the topic that got them here in the first place. Because the conversation had turned heated, and the resulting conclusion was not an answer, but rather a delay, during which Keith could blow off stream. Where they could forget what it means to think about their problems.

Keith lets out a slow breath. “I don't know,” he whispers. “I don't know if I want to know.”

There's lingering memories of pain, even from before Voltron. Of a forced conformity and hidden wrongdoings and thinly veiled threats. He doesn't want to remember that which has just begun to fade away with time, though perhaps the sharp spike of hurt will keep these present in his mind for the rest of his life.

“What if...”

Keith doesn't want to go back.

But.

Lance makes a pained noise, quiet in comparison to the room, even, and Keith feels tears land on his shoulder. “I have to go.”

Keith closes his eyes, takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” he says, drawing Lance closer. “Okay. We'll go. Together.”

**Author's Note:**

> This has nothing to do with S4 but I needed an outlet for emotions and look what happened. Angsty porn. Yay. Also?? This is my 20th VLD fic and if this ain't a sign idk what it is.


End file.
